ON BIG GAME SHOOTING GENERALLY 9 - 
here. The wind is the stalker’s deadliest foe, and in many 
of the countries known best to the writer (sheep countries for 
_ the most part) there are days in each week when it is wiser to 
stay in camp or hunt in the timber down below, rather than 
| risk disturbing game when the winds are playing the devil in 
_ Skuloptin. Take your Indian’s advice, and stop at home on 
such days as these ; play picquet with your friend, look after 
_ your trophies, or write up your diary. 
To any but the youngest hunters it seems superfluous to 
say that you must hunt up or across the wind ; to remind 
them of what a score of authorities have said before about 
the lessons to be learnt from the drifting mist-wreaths ; to 
warn them to take care that they see the beast before the 
beast sees them, and to this end to be careful in coming 
over arise in the ground ; to put only just so much of their 
__ head above the skyline as will enable them to see the country 
_ beyond, and even then to bring that small part of their 
_ body up very slowly and under cover of some friendly bush- 
_ tussock or boulder. In eighteen years’ hunting the writer 
has met many men who might be forgiven for believing that 
_ wild game never lies down, for whenever they have seen it, it 
has been on its feet, looking at them. And no wonder, for 
_ some of them would even 7ide up to the top of a bluff before 
_ looking to see what lay in the valley beyond. And yet, even 
after such a mistake as this, there is a chance sometimes of 
_ retrieving your error if the wind is in your favour. If, for in- 
stance, in riding from camp to camp you suddenly come in full 
_ view of a stag, with a hind or two, walking in the early morning 
_ along the ridge of the next bluff to that upon which you and 
_ your Indians are riding, say a word to your men, and let them 
_ either ride slowly on or stop absolutely stationary in the same 
_ spot, whilst you slide out of your saddle and creep away on 
_ your belly amongst the grass. Above all, they must heep in full 
_ view of the stag, and if they do this, :n nine cases out of ten the 
_ Stag will not notice that you have gone, and whilst he stares 
_ intently at the strange objects which he knows to be at a safe 
